ORIGINAL PAPER Genetic diversity of Nymphon (Arthropoda: Pycnogonida: Nymphonidae) along the Antarctic Peninsula with a focus

• Main Authors: On Nymphon Australe Hodgson, C. P. Arango, A. R. Mahon
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.421.1751; http://gump.auburn.edu/halanych/lab/Pub.pdfs/Mahon2008.pdf

Abstract Sea spiders are conspicuous, and often abundant, members of the Antarctic benthic community. Nymphonidae (Pycnogonida) in Southern Ocean waters comprise over 240 species which are often diYcult to assign due to their intraspeciWc ‘highly variable ’ morphology. In particular, Nymphon australe, the numerically dominant species in Antarctic waters is known to have a high level of phenotypic variation in external morphology and is also reported to have a circumpolar distribution. Circumpolarity seems contradictory to the pycnogonid’s brooding lifestyle and presumably limited dispersal. Here we examine the genetic diversity of several Nymphon species collected in the Antarctic Peninsular region. Concomitantly, we assess the genetic structure of N. australe to gain insight into Nymphon dispersal capacity. Cytochrome c oxidase Communicated by T. Reusch. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00227-008-1029-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.